Smoking rates have been slowly falling in Western countries for decades. Soon, the habit could be wiped out, without even having to ban it.

Most of us in the West are an unhealthy lot: we eat junk food, drink too much alcohol, exercise too little and generally ignore medical advice designed to help us live longer.

But there is one thing we are listening to our doctors about. Smoking rates have been slowly falling, year on year, in most Western countries for decades.

This month saw the 10-year anniversary of England's ban on smoking in enclosed workplaces - including bars and restaurants - a change that once would have seemed inconceivable.

The UK government is due to announce new tobacco control strategies for the next few years.

The decline of smoking is emboldening some public health officials to plan for what is sometimes called the tobacco endgame - stubbing out smoking completely.

But several strategies to reach this goal have potential pitfalls, and some could even be counterproductive.

So is a smoke-free future ever going to happen, and what could we do to bring it about?

Smoking was a minority pursuit until the late 19th century and the arrival of one of the deadliest inventions in history: industrially produced cigarettes.

Their popularity soared during the first world war, as soldiers were given cigarettes with their rations.

Celebrities, athletes and even doctors endorsed the habit. At its peak in the mid-20th century, around half of all adults in the UK and the US smoked.

But the evidence was building that smoking causes lung cancer, as well as heart attacks, strokes and other diseases.

The risks were denied by tobacco companies for decades, but the tide of public opinion was turning.

As governments brought in an increasing array of tobacco control measures, from health warnings on cigarette packs to advertising bans and restrictions on where people can light up, smoking rates have slowly declined.

A long-standing fear, however, has been that the fall would stop because of a hard core of smokers impervious to all health advice.

"People always used to say you can never get below 25 per cent," says Martin Dockrell of Public Health England.

"In the UK, adult smoking rates are now down to about 16 per cent, in the US, 15 per cent"

But this hasn't happened. In the UK, adult smoking rates are now down to about 16 per cent, in the US, 15 per cent. So how long could this trend continue?

Some think there is practically no limit, including Stanton Glantz at the University of California, San Francisco, a long-time tobacco control crusader.

He says that while smoking will never be completely wiped out, the habit could be eliminated "as a public health problem of substantial consequence" - in other words, smoking rates could be reduced to just a few per cent.

Some countries already have this goal in sight. New Zealand, which has long had some of the world's strictest tobacco control laws, aims to get adult smoking down to below 5 per cent by 2025.

Finland is aiming for this by 2030, including the use of chewing tobacco and e-cigarettes.

Existing smokers could carry on, but youngsters wouldn't legally be able to start.

Such a law has been debated in the Tasmanian parliament in Australia, although it has never been introduced anywhere, partly because it raises the same problem of fostering a black market for those under the age limit.

Others have suggested forcing the tobacco industry to alter the make-up of cigarettes, such as making them slightly more alkaline to deter deep inhalation.

This would make them more like the harsh old-style "gaspers", as cigarettes used to be known in the UK. But again, milder, black-market cigarettes would win out.

"In 2004, the nation of Bhutan outlawed the sale of all cigarettes and chewing tobacco."

The best approach, says Glantz, is to continue raising taxes, and further restrict advertising and where people can smoke in public.